On November 1, 2019 my mother, Lisa Foutch got a phone call EVERYONE dreads. She was told she had acute Leukemia. From that moment on her whole life changed along with ours. But, as the close family that we are we knew we had to do whatever we needed to keep momma's spirits up and be with her during this process and support her in WHATEVER ways she needed. November 1 she was sent to Sacred Heart on the Emerald Coast ER for further testing. There she saw an oncologist that had looked at her blood report from the pathologist he confirmed she had Acute Myeloid Leukemia. She was then sent to Sacred Heart Pensacola where her Oncologist and Hematologist awaited her arrival. On November 4 she had her first Bone Marrow Biopsy this is were they get a full test on her blood, bone marrow and bone to find out what percent of blasting she has in all 3 areas. If it was under 15% everywhere they consider that MDS which is essentially early onset Leukemia but that is a lot harder to treat and there is no cure for that. November 6th it was confirmed she does in fact have AML. Her blasts in blood were 12% but in the bone it was at 30%. Many questions are well, what's the treatment. Leukemia is a lot different than say lung cancer, breast cancer etc. Leukemia is a blood cancer so the treatment is a lot different you can't go in and remove the blood like you can a tumor and hope that you got it all. Treatment for AML is targeted to the patient because they send part of you blood, bone marrow and bone off for further testing to test your DNA for any kinds of mutations. They do have a pretty regulated treatment plan start though, which is called 7 +3. That is 7 days of one type of chemo and 3 days of a different chemo. So, for 7 days 24/7 she got one chemo drug the first 3 days she got a different type each bag of that took about 30 minutes. After the 7+3 they wait for all her numbers to drop. White blood cells, red blood cells and absolute neutrophils. Once that happens she would go into neutropenia which is what the chemo is supposed to do wipe all good and bad things out of her blood in hopes to kill that one lazy cancer cell that made it in alive. During this time are a lot of blood and platelet transfusions. November 7 was her last walk outside in her secret garden before she received Picc line and chemo. November 14 was her last day of chemo and then the waiting game started of her becoming neutropenic and learning what would happen next. She had one pretty rough week during that time from chemo side effects large sores on tongue, swollen gums which those together make it very hard to eat anything and be able to enjoy it. 2nd bone marrow biopsy happened and results came in that the leukemia wasn't gone. Unfortunately, she would need another round. DNA results came back and she has a mutation to her chromosome number 7. The leukemia has deleted half of her chromosome 7 so with that it means that it is in her DNA and it is more resistant to chemo. Another round of chemo will start and our big goal now is to get into remission so that she can receive a bone marrow transplant.
